• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team
  • HI folks the server that hosts the site completely died including the Hdd's and backups.
    Luckily i create an offsite backup once a week! this has now been restored so we have lost a few days posts.
    im still fixing things at the moment so bear with me and im still working on all images 90% are fine the others im working on now
    we are now using a backup solution

School Milk

C

christopher short

Birmingham Post
Our junior school (Yew Tree) milk in the 1950's had always been delivered when we arrived in the morning. So it had possibly been standing outside for at least a couple of hours. In the summer, in full sun and in winter, in the freezing cold.
It's already making my throat constrict..... Summer milk was always warm bordering on hot and was separating out. Winter milk had frozen and had expanded in the bottle, forcing off the top. Then it was lined up on the hot heating pipes to warm it up.
Those early experiences put me off milk for life - on it's own, in drinks or milk puddings.
Strangely, for all its reputation in those days, I quite enjoyed school dinners.
 
I remembered the milk at school especially when it was frozen. Pete is the same he could not drink milk on it's own but does take it in tea and loves custard. Jean.
 
I love milk it,s my favourite when ice cool if i could pull a flanker at school i,d drink 2 or 3 bottles i,d go round the kids that didn,t like it and drink theirs. Dek
 
I love lime milk shakes Dek but have tried everywhere for the lime mixer. Can buy chocolate [yuk] banana and strwberry but I do love lime. I used to love the frozen school milk because I would suck the creamy bit as it tasted like a creamy lolly. Can't stand warm milk though and that maybe because as a child on holiday in Wales the farmer let me have a go at milking and he put some in a tin and I drank it. Couldn't do that these days with health and safety and all that. Jean.
 
Never liked school milk but absolutely love it now in any form; rice puddings, shakes, hot milk on its own. And as for Horlicks, Bournvita and Ovaltine. BLISS!!! Used to have one of those mugs - Ovaltine I think - with a face of the moon on it. Viv.
 
The bottle of milk was the highlight of my day at school,sometimes after drinking it I went home again.
 
Trying to remember who supplied school milk - it certainly varied between schools. All the bottles were 1/3 pint size, I think Dulwich Road infants and Hawthorn Road Junior Boys took Midland Counties, and Aston Grammar took Co-op, but I'm not sure. I seem to remember that All Saints' Infants, where my nan taught took Handsworth Dairies, which came in a broad necked little bottle with a wide cardboard insert lid - you had to press the middle section in if you used a straw, as I was told to do.
Peter
 
I became milk monitor for a while - volunteer for anything to get out of class, me! - and could have as much as I liked. 2-3 a day usually. There was always plenty over, and anyone who wanted more than one usually could. Read the School Milk act for more details on when, how and why it was provided - and who stopped it.
 
I remember Maggie Thatcher having something to do with it not Harold Wilson. Thanks for the link Lloyd. Jean.
 
them where the days of school milk
warm and with a layer of thick cream in the summer still makes me shudder now when i think about it
and freezing cold and sometimes frozen in the winter

we had the little glass bottles with the foil tops and had a small and i do mean small blue straw to use
and sometimes we used to get a biscuit with it usaly around christmas as a treat
and god help anybody who didnt drink there milk before first playtime
i remember one of my teachers keeping the whole class in one morning playing time because nobody would drink their milk because it had sat outside in the sun and had gone all warm and horried

oh happy days lol
 
I became a milk monitor at my school in my second year, the reason I went for this well fought for job was that as a seperate school ( girls and boys had seperate schools on the same site) like many post war sec mod's you got to go into the girls school and hand over to their monitors it ment walking the length of their corridore and back and past all the class rooms. still have these great memories (roll eyes).
paul
 
All I can say is Yuck can't stand milk on its own,

It was Yew Tree that really put me off milk, it was just the same at Marsh Hill.

I feel ill thinking about it

Linda
 
l am one of the ones like many who hated milk.....always have in its raw form that is....love milk puddings or anything that milk is used for l've never ever liked milk to drink on it own even seeing people drink it turns my stomach......as most kids who started school the shock of having to drink milk really upset me to the point of throwing a tantrum,so when mom realised what all the fuss was about when she walked me to Burlington st sch mom would pick up a bottle of milk and when morning break came( living in Copley st it was easy to hear the bell go)mom would bring me a nice mug of ovaltine for me......happy memories.....Brenda
 
OH YES;
I Like milk and i can remember those little botles of milk very extstintly
I was a milk monitor at st marys school at the avenue aston ;
we used to have o fetch those frozen little bottle across the play ground and bring them in;
and we used to have hot cups of coco in the morning and then myself and another couple of monitors would deliver them around the classes with in the school
fetching across the play ground in the frozen snow was the worst part
we really appreciated those hot cups of coco indeed
have a nice day every body best wishes astonion ;;
 
Thanks for your responses. Some of your memories made my stomach churn. I can also recall that distinctive smell of school milk - ugh !

I remember returning to school after the summer holidays and was there when a boy opened his locker to find a half bottle of milk he left there 7 weeks previously.......... can you imagine ?
 
My first memory of school milk was at Chuckery Infants School ,Walsall in the 50s. At 10 a.m work stopped and we had our milk with a snack brought from home. For most kids it was a jam sandwich, the odd rich kid had chocolate biscuits. Little square mats were given out so crumbs and jam did not get on the desk top. These always smelt of sour milk yet they were always washed after use. The hot summers of the 60's, resulting in sour milk, put me off the stuff for a while.Why did the headmaster not have enough nouse to report what was happening. Gallons of milk were wasted. Orange juice would have been a better choice in the summer. The demand for milk from the Education Department must have payed the wages of many a Dairy Farmer and Milk Man.
Later I discovered ice cold milk at Cafes and Coffee bars and probably drank far too much of it. Now I rarely drink the stuff. I have powdered creamer in my coffee and powdered skimmed milk in recipes. I prefer my beer beer as it comes.
 
I also hated milk, and still do. However, at our school in winter we used to be able to make a hot chocolate drink with it, in the school kitchen. Now that I could drink.
 
Maggs - yes we had our milk as cocoa/drinking-cholate during the winter too. There were no refusers then, and alas no 'seconds' either! If I remember correctly, we could buy Cadbury's Chocolate Fingers at primary/junior school, and dunk them in our mugs of cocoa - bliss!

No such luxury once we went to secondary school.
icon9.png
 
Yes, we had the same JohnO. As you say, there were no refusal's for the hot chocolate, but sadly no second's either. We also only got this in junior school as you did.
 
You have set me thinking now Sue, and I just can't remember what we drank the cocoa from.
 
Remembered why I didn't like school milk. Because it was pastuerised. We only had sterilised milk at home (the tall bottles with the silver beer bottle type top that you had to use a bottle opener to open). So the school milk was very creamy by comparison. Used to love sterilised milk with Camp coffee in it! Camp coffee is still made, saw it in Tescos this morning. But I don't think sterilised milk is still available. Viv.
 
Vivienne14 said:
Remembered why I didn't like school milk. Because it was pastuerised. We only had sterilised milk at home (the tall bottles with the silver beer bottle type top that you had to use a bottle opener to open). So the school milk was very creamy by comparison. Used to love sterilised milk with Camp coffee in it! Camp coffee is still made, saw it in Tescos this morning. But I don't think sterilised milk is still available. Viv.
Click to expand...

How strange that you should have said this Vivienne. I have just said the same thing to my husband. We alway's had sterilized milk in our house too. It made the most fantastic rice pudding, unlike pasteurised milk which seem's watery in pudding's. I also loved Camp coffee and sterilized milk, and added sugar too, even though it was sweetened.
 
Jean, if I could get stera around here, I would definitely make a rice pudding with it. Do you remember the bottles going round at Midland Counties Dairies, where you could watch from the street?
 
Steralised milk is now in plastic bottles and is usually found with the cartons of what I call everlasting milk. I had a bottle recently but it does not taste the same as when I was a kid. I loved it on cornflakes.
We had Camp Coffee , really its chicory essance and that is why it is not found amongst the jars of coffee, because Maxwell House or Nescafe was expensive. That is one thing I insist on now is good coffee but I prefer it with creamer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top